Mississippi's Failure

[Louisiana1976]

Mississippi is trumpeting its success at rebuilding since Hurricane Katrina decimated its Gulf Coast counties four years ago. But that progress has largely bypassed people like James Johnson, an impoverished and arthritic 74-year-old who has been sleeping on a thin cushion in a FEMA trailer, searching for help to rebuild his shattered home.

Mr. Johnson finally got some good news recently when a group associated with the Presbyterian Church committed to build him a new home. But the years of worry and discomfort have taken a heavy physical and emotional toll on this fiercely independent man.

This is not what Congress envisioned when it approved an initial $5.5 billion in disaster relief for Mississippi. It was disaster aid. The law required states and localities to spend 50 percent of the money on low- and moderate-income families. Over time, however, the state managed to get waivers and found other ways to spend the money on different projects.

In Mr. Johnson’s case, the problem was too narrow a definition of disaster relief. According to a startling new report by the Steps Coalition, a watchdog group, Mr. Johnson and thousands of other homeowners were shut out of the state’s assistance program because their homes were destroyed by wind rather than water.

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more...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/opinion/21mon1.html?_r=1

[aquart]

1. Proud Mississippi?

[Historic NY]

3. too dumb, too fat , too sick, too poor, its at or close to the bottom....

its seems like the state strives to be last. My cousin a Northerner has finalyl decided its time to get the hell out of Mississippi after 4 yrs to go back to Florida or to Virginia.

[Selatius]

2. Like the plantation owners of yore, Mississippi is still largely dominated by a small group of rich.

I live here on the Mississippi coast, and I remember this part very well:

While many Mississippians languished without help, the Bush administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development allowed the state to shift $600 million of the recovery money to the refurbishment and expansion of the Port of Gulfport — a pet project of local politicians that was conceived long before Katrina.

The move was so outrageous a coalition of churches here on the coast, some of them fundamentalist in my eyes, got together and signed a letter to Barbour to stop short-changing the poorest among us.

One needs only to drive through some of the former working class neighborhoods to find that very little reconstruction is going on. Most of the home rebuilding is being done on the owners' initiatives, not anything from the state government. Otherwise, many of these neighborhoods would be seeing a lot more home rebuilding than has been going on thus far. There are still entire blocks of the city of Biloxi that have not been rebuilt. They are just empty lots.

Yet, these people continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a damn about them. Case in point: Former mayor of Gulfport plead guilty to defrauding the government out of disaster relief money to rebuild his beachfront home. Turns out that home wasn't even his primary residence, like the rules said it had to be, yet he got the money, and he ultimately plead guilty to one charge out of over 20 other indictments against him. He simply got probation...just probation...for basically stealing 250,000.

If he were a poor black person or white person, he'd be in jail for years if not decades.